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 areas of science and technology are difficult. This means that micro - 

 management of R&D Is most generally an unproductive activity, and research 

 management approaches that follow a research priority setting methodology are 

 likely to fall because they Ignore the realities of the scientific discovery 

 process in these areas. 



Although the production of scientific discoveries is uncertain, it is 

 unreasonable to assume an equally likely probability of discovery in all areas. 

 Working scientists are the best judge of their own ability to make break- 

 throughs in various areas. Research administrators, recognizing theses 

 realities, can effectively set some general priorities Including the 

 "riskiness" of the research enterprises but place most of their efforts 

 on setting appropriate monetary incentives for producing generally useful 

 outputs for their scientists. 



Implications for the Debate about Priority Setting 

 and Location of Facilities 



Several Issues are developed here. First, the single biggest issue 



facing priority setting is the definition of the boundary between public 



and private research and establishment of new and useful public-private 



collaborative relationships to advance the technology of agriculture. 



Shrinking real public resources for agricultural research, strengthening 



Intellectual property rights, and changes in federal policies on ownership of 



intellectual property from federally funded research are major contributing 



factors. I believe that it will ultimately be self defeating for the public 



sector (including the USDA and SAES) to attempt to sell Intellectual property 



rights In the same fashion that private companies buy and sell (or license) 



Intellectual property among themselves. The reasons are that a long and 



